Friday, August 7, 2009

I guess they were unaware diamonds came with debt. Meet Nick Price.

Meet one of the bands I respect most in the music business right now-Meg and Dia. Though their names may not seem that familiar, this band has been working for years on putting out music and are a little surprise and relief from most of the bands on Warped Tour. Their acoustic and earthly sounds put on a different type of show as, in Nick Price's own words, just five people singing and playing their instruments.

I first found out about them from a friend's band Treaty of Paris when the two acts toured together in the past. They recently released a long awaited album in "Here, Here and Here" and have just finished the Warped Tour (two days ago!) and hopefully will be on the road this fall in support of the album!

I was lucky enough to get the chance to sit down with Nick Price, the fabulous drummer of the band at the Montreal date of the Warped Tour despite the monsoon surrounding us!

How's Warped Tour going so far?

It's been good. It's our third year, we did it in '06 and '07. It's going good so far!

Crowds have been giving a good response?

Pretty well. The crowd is a little bit different this time around where as in '06 and '07 they were more pop/rock and this year it seems very much more like harder rock/screamo bands. It's almost like this new wave of music so it's a little bit different from what we've had in the past. But I feel like this year, opposed to the previous years, people are more here to see us rather then to see the whole warped tour. It makes it a little nicer because people have come out to see us then to just carry on with their day.

I know that the guys on the tour have been saying that Warped is changing into something else, with a whole bunch of different bands coming on tour, which isn't a bad thing really.

Yeah.

If someone has never caught your set and is thinking of seeing you play, how would you describe it to them?

It's definitely more organic really. We're trying to avoid using any kind of like digital tracks or anything. It's just five people playing their instruments together. Sometimes we have a bad show, sometimes we have a great show. It's always different, like today, Dia is, like extremely sick so Meg's going to be singing. Dia's been sick for a couple shows now so it's always different. I can't say that every show is the same.

For sure. Are there any artists at Warped Tour that you were really excited to see this year or any that you've grown to like?

I grew up listening to, like, Bad Religion and NOFX so it's always fun to see those guys. I actually got to talk to Brooks, the drummer for Bad Religion the other night and I was freaking out. Also, we have a lot of friends on the tour but we were also really excited to check out Dear And The Headlights and we're friends with P.O.S. from previous years. Actually, yesterday, he came on stage with us and rapped over one of our songs yesterday since Dia wasn't able to sing so it was really fun but yeah, there's definitely a lot of talent here.

That's awesome, it's definitely a bit different from the style of Meg and Dia! You guys also just released some new music. How has that been going?

I think so. Our new album is a lot more mature. We've grown a lot, like together as a band. We've also all grown individually, playing our own instruments so the album's definitely more mature. We're all really stoked about it. Actually, we're attracting more of a mature audience which is really good.

Are there any tours, future music plans we can look forward to after Warped Tour?

We don't know yet. We've submitted for a few tours, we don't know if we're going to get them. If we don't then we might just end up doing a headliner tour but we'd rather tour for like, a huge tour with someone that we worship but that might not happen.

I know bands you guys have toured with in the past, like Treaty of Paris and a few smaller bands. Would you ever do a tour again with bands you've toured with in the past if it was up to you?

Of course, if we do a headlining tour, we'll remember who we liked and those guys are great friends of ours, just from touring with them with The Spill Canvas. We just got really close and so there's a few bands like that we'd just take out every time that we plan to have on tours. We're just like 'We want to take out this band and this band' and then it ends up being like ten bands, we have to whittle it down to like three.

If you get the opportunity to come on Warped Tour again, would you take it?

It depends on where we are if the opportunity comes. Since when you're on Warped Tour, you're really sick of it but once you are off Warped Tour, you're like damn, when's Warped Tour coming up? Like, we didn't think we were going to do Warped Tour this year but I was emailing our manager like "hey get us on Warped Tour!" and when we did it, we were really stoked and now we're here and we're like 'it's rainy, it's super hot, our bus is two miles away' but we're having fun.

Are there any stand out memories for you so far on the tour?

Well, like I said for me, the other night meeting Brooks Wackerman from Bad Religion, that was a big deal. Oh well, something happened today. I was warming up in our little gear tent, this gust of wind comes in, blows our gear tent over, crushes another tent.

Today?

Yeah, just like earlier this morning. It flew on to the drummer from I Set My Friends on Fire. He was just next to me, warming up and he was like two tents down. Our tent just goes woosh, cuts his head open. It was the most intense ten minutes. I was just like 'Uh!'

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You can find more of their music here and hopefully we will be seeing this act on tour as soon as this fall!